As part of our ongoing exploration into cyber bullying we recently posted a survey and asked students from secondary school to complete it.

The anonymous survey focussed on a range of issues including time spent on the internet, the things they do online and who they would turn to if they suffered from harassment via the web.

The answers given to this last question are perhaps the best illustration into the potential dangers for young people and cyber bullying, with 40 per cent of respondents saying they wouldn't tell anyone about the harassment and 40 per cent saying they'd tell their friends. Only 20 per cent chose the option of telling their parents.

This figure is a telling one when trying to understand how something that happens in the digital realm can have such a devastating impact in real life. This reluctance to tell anyone they're having a problem increases the sense of isolation and exacerbates the issue.

Another interesting element raised by the survey was the seemingly blurry definition of what cyber bullying really is. When asked 'have you ever been victim of cyber bullying?' 20 per cent responded with a 'maybe', compared to 20 per cent who said yes and 60 per cent who said no.

This result is possibly getting close to the real issue of cyber bullying, in that clear examples and guidelines to what it is and isn't are unclear. It further indicates the online landscape is constantly shifting for all users, regardless of age, gender or location.

Some slightly more optimistic information came from the question 'how much do you use the internet in a week?' with 40 per cent of students estimating their usage to be less than five hours. Further bucking the trend, 20 per cent of those surveyed said they watch more television than they use the internet.

Another example of Central Victorian students differing was their willingness to upload their own content. While the web is now based heavily around user generated content such as photos, video, music and writing, the young people who took part in the survey said they only occasionally or rarely published their own content online (40 per cent for both) compared to 20 per cent who did it regularly.

Of all the valuable information and ideas that came from the survey, the most interesting of all was from the students themselves, when asked how dangerous they think cyber bullying is to people their age.

"I think it's probably worse than your average bullying," said one respondent who was concerned with the 'always on' nature of digital communication.

"Very dangerous. You hear stories about people who kill themselves because it's just too much," said another, who also raised the issue of pre-dispositions to how much it could affect them, asking -

"...were people like that going to do it anyway? I don't know, but it's definitely a real problem."

Another angle given was to actually confront the person responsible and take it out of the online world.

"I ticked I would tell no one, because confronting the person doing the bullying was not an option. I would hunt them down and demand an apology in front of a big group of people or something like that. I wouldn't take it and I could deal with it myself."